


Among Friends

by Ranowa



Category: Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer
Genre: Art, Book 5: The Lost Colony, Book 7: The Atlantis Complex, Book 8: The Last Guardian, Canonical Character Death, Everyone Needs A Hug, Friendship, Gen, Let's give Artemis one, Missing Scene, and resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-05 07:24:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18823906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ranowa/pseuds/Ranowa
Summary: Even when he's gone, some of the world still seems to revolve around Artemis Fowl.





	1. Butler: Waiting

**Author's Note:**

> Heyo. I don't really know how active this fandom is anymore so if this gets no takers, that's cool, but I saw the... Interesting... trailer for the movie, and somehow ended up binging this. 
> 
> This is five missing scenes (with a lame ass title), each one from a different character's perspective, all about Arty. I'll post once a day, going in chronological order. The first one is Lost Colony, probably my personal favorite, and follows Butler waiting for Artemis to come home.
> 
> (yeah I haven't read the books in ages- I quite honestly don't know where my copies are anymore. canon? what's that? certainly nothing I remember. Enjoy <3)

Butler spends the years playing chess.

The beach is not an extraordinarily lonely one, though the beach-house he retires to each night expressly is. There's a private school and university nearby, and a luxurious retirement home a little further south, and the college town further south than that. Butler watches the ocean, regardless of the temperature and regardless of the clouds, but when the weather's fair, the beach can end up quite busy.

And, because he no longer has anything to fill his time with, Butler passes the days that fall into years by playing chess.

It's usually retirees that he plays with; the children are frightened of him, and the teenagers want nothing to do with an academic game during a day at the beach, because they quite normal teenagers, and not- well. Yes. And at first, he frightened the retirees, too- he's always tended to frighten most people. Winning their games with an unerring and military precision, and always sitting silent, because the life stories they wanted him to tell were tales that he could never say.

The weeks become months. No one comes.

At least, no one that he wants to see.

The day eventually comes when Butler has to start talking, just to keep his own sanity.

He spends the endless games of monotonous, mind-numbing ability tossing words about a spinning wheel, talking off the top of his head to invent a backstory without a single grain of truth to it. A few tours in Desert Storm, some work for private police in eastern Europe, a mercenary in Pakistan... it never matters. Being entangled in the Fowl family's scheme requires proper discretion, being able to invent a backstory on a moment's notice- so that was what he did. A new backstory every week.

Sometimes, he told the truth.

Not about the things that matter. Because even here, on this lonely, isolated beach, waiting on a vigil that may never end, there are things that matter. The identity of his charge changes with each retelling; never an Irishman, never a genius, never just a boy. The truth about the fairies is never there, either; they aren't little people living underground in these stories, they're magical sky elves or forest nymphs who fly with gossamer wings instead of a tech suit, because he wishes The People no ill will, just as he still, even with every last trace of his charge gone, must protect the Fowl family.

But sometimes, just sometimes, he'll retell the same story that he'd told the Fowl family when their son had vanished right out of this dimension and left him without a charge to protect.

Somewhat coincidentally, he's now now known as the unfortunate loner with dementia so severe he can't remember a single lick of his own past, and a group of onlookers gathers whenever the weather's warm enough to listen to whatever wild stories he'll tell next.

This is quite all right, to Butler.

Some day, this will end.

Some day, Artemis will come back.

For now:

He waits.

* * *

Foaly visits, sometimes.

Not often. It's a struggle, for a centaur to make his way around a human settlement. There's also just no _reason_ for it; the situation doesn't change. If it does, Butler will know, but this doesn't matter, because it _never changes,_ and there is never any news for Foaly to tell. They have never been especially close, and now, with Butler's charge and Foaly's colleague vanished from this dimension, there's nothing there between them but commiseration.

Still, Foaly sometimes visits.

He'll wonder his way in on particularly foul days, when the clouds are black with lightning storms, when it's too dangerous for even Butler to keep watch outside. Crinkling in something called chamfoil, which Artemis probably knows how to make while Butler merely wishes he'd asked him how while he still could. He'll grin, teeth flashing in the darkness of the hut, clomp about dripping and excited.

He's not sure if it's pity, that gets the centaur to sit down with him, and play the same game of chess he's wasting the years with.

It's something that he doesn't like. But no, he's not quite sure if it's pity.

Every time, the conversation between them is the same.

No, there's no sign of them.

Yes, he's sure.

Yes, they'd know if Hydras had appeared anywhere on the planet.

No, they've not stopped looking.

No, they haven't given up.

_We'll never give up._

* * *

Midway through the second year, he's approached by a couple that reminds him of Angeline and Artemis Fowl.

It's not them, of course.

Angeline has never come, and the few times Artemis Fowl I has, begging him to stop speaking this nonsense and imploring him to just _come home, already,_ his old employer had barely been able to look him in the eye.

He doesn't come, anymore.

But this couple might as well _be_ them. Well-dressed with elite finery, clear members of the Irish aristocracy and parents of the nearby prep school that Butler recognizes coming from a mile away. They bring with them their son, a small, skittish, dark-haired little thing, too pale for the beach and too small for his suit.

His heart wavers.

When the couple introduces themselves, he filters and processes their names on a subconscious level. When they ask him to teach their son chess, promising to pay no matter his asking price, he barely even hears them.

He agrees, and tells himself, _why not._

He doesn't pretend, even to himself, to not know why he's doing it.

* * *

The boy is smart, and quick-witted, and observant. He listens and absorbs like a sponge, and he plays well, when Butler teaches him the rules. He almost wins their third game, and manages to surprise even him on their fifth. He sits obedient and well-mannered, always right on his father's heel or at the end of his mother's hand. There's never a rude or impatient word out of his mouth. He is charming, likable, and polite.

He's not Artemis.

* * *

It takes only three weeks of lessons for Butler to send the boy away, and tell him, as a reward for all his hard work, that he can go play in the sand while he speaks to his parents. The look on his face, like sunlight breaking through on a new dawn, perhaps the first genuine joy he's ever seen on that child's face, is all he needs.

"Your son is five years old," he tells the parents. The mother, impatient and stiff with a tapping foot like Artemis Senior had once been; the father exasperated and frustrated in a way that mirrors a old memory of Angeline. "Let him have a childhood. He won't get another chance."

Behind them, the boy who is not Artemis is ecstatically at play in the sand, the happiest by many miles that Butler has seen him since they'd ever met.

Butler remembers playing Artemis in chess, the first time only at a mere three years old. Artemis' little hands hadn't been coordinated enough to lift the heavy pieces, and with a pouting lower lip and sulking eyes, the boy had had to drag them around instead, ivory scraping against the fine glass of the board with every move. His father would've had a fit, but Artemis is three years old and bright-eyed and curious, so Butler lets the thin glass scrape and scar as he explains the rules, names the pieces, and gently, hands over his, guides the the humming toddler's movements like a father might a child's.

Artemis had won the second game by the skin of his teeth. Then thrashed him so thoroughly the third time there'd been no need for a fourth.

He wasn't sure Artemis had ever even been to a beach. He was _quite_ sure his charge had never once spread out in the sand like the boy before him was busy doing now, kicking and rolling and laughing, and relaxed the way children were meant to do.

He'd never seen him smile with such abandon, either.

Butler leaves his spot early that day, and resolves, as he trudges on back through the hot sands, that he'll find a new one tomorrow.

At least until that boy and his dark, dark blue eyes goes away.

* * *

Foaly visits that night.

Butler has learned the signs very well, so when that faintest of shimmers clops in through the door, he only tenses just a little, and waits in the thick, dusty shadows instead for the centaur to reveal himself, dripping and shaggy-faced with an unkempt laziness like a school boy. "Good evening," Foaly announces through a too big smile, his face too tired and tight, as if he's aged several centuries instead of just several years. In his eyes, there, right there, Butler sees it.

It's not pity, that keeps him sauntering out here two years in, with not a sign of Holly or Artemis ever in sight.

It's loneliness.

"Evening," Butler murmurs back. He watches the rain sheet down outside, a grey downpour that wets sand into thick mud. The tide'll be up to the house, tomorrow.

"-really coming down, out there- you know we don't have real rain, in Haven? Always feels so strange- are you quite sure you don't want to move further inland? Be less of a hassle for all of us- no? You're sure?" He prattles on in his heavily accented English, shaking a sopping wet mane out so vigorously Butler gets dripped on from across the room. "Well, I suppose I don't mind the excuse to visit a real beach every now and again..."

Chamfoil crinkles like a storm of parchment as it's set aside, the centaur cutting a curious sight of half-man, half-nothing as he drapes it to settle and dry over his broad back. "Shuttle over here was a nightmare, though, I'm telling you, if they'd only listen to me about the transfer from nuclear to thermal power for short-range flights... no one's listening to me, though, are they?" He sniffs and snickers, tossing his mane, and searches his eyes back onto him. "How're you, then, Butler?" He trots further inside, still seemingly mystified by the water dripping down from from head to toe in a way that only befits someone who's never been rained on before. "Still keeping yourself busy?"

Butler smiles through gritted teeth. "Artemis has kept me busier," he says, and reaches forward to set the chess pieces up for play.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> give the Big Man a hug yall
> 
> Tomorrow is Angeline, right at the end of TAC. Hopefully I'll see some people then!


	2. Angeline: Help

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the comments/kudos! A non-dead fandom, woohoo!!!
> 
> we now continue with your regularly scheduled programming...

The third shuttle is smaller than the first two, warmer than the first one, and more unsettling than the phone call that had come to inform her that her son was unwell.

Angeline barely fits into the seat. It's clearly made for someone much smaller than her- someone perhaps the size of Holly, piloting the shuttle even now. The size of a teenager.

The size of her son.

In the end, that is what this whole matter has always been, hasn't it? The day Artemis had introduced her to this mystical Holly, the look of a child in a Halloween costume, a part of her has seen it as just a game. Artemis acting his age for the first time in his entire life, and playing make-believe with a magical elf and frolicking centaur with Butler along to be sure he kept safe. It was so infinitely preferable to the story being spelled out before her; the story that she has never truly known her own child, that Artemis has friends that he needs and relies on that she has never met, a whole secret life that he has never had any interest in telling to her.

It's easier to imagine that this is all just a game, than to hear the truth.

Of course she'd known it wasn't _a game,_ not _really._ Her son was nothing if not exceptional to the highest degree, and if there was anyone in the world who could turn elves from a fairy-tale into a life-threatening, world-saving scheme, it was Artemis Fowl the Second.

But some part of her had wanted to look at Artemis, and just see him be normal.

Because normal meant safe.

Normal could even mean happy.

Angeline closes her eyes, pressing the heels of her palms to her face, and ekes out a hitching, broken sigh.

And now, she's on her way hundreds of kilometers into the earth to see her son, sedated in a hospital bed and with something gone so wrong in his head not even the fairies can fix it.

_Some normal._

"I've received coordinates from the hospital ship," Holly says abruptly, her voice hushed and just a little uncomfortable under the gentle hum of the engine. It's the first either of them have spoken ever since they'd boarded this shuttle and set off into the ocean. "We're about fifteen minutes out, now, Mrs. Fowl."

Angeline breathes in deeply once again, leaning her head back against a cushion that's too small and fingering the harness that's too tight. Fifteen minutes.

It's been almost a day, since Butler's call.

She can surely do fifteen minutes.

She must.

"And my son?"

Holly stiffens. From her position, Angeline can't see her face, and though the shuttle is quite steady now, after their ride down here she's not standing up until they are firmly docked and the pilot tells her it's all right. But even from here, she sees the tension roll through Holly's shoulders at the mere mention of him, and she knows, then and there, that the answer is not something that will be pleasant to hear.

"Artemis is safe, right now," Holly answers finally, her voice tight and clipped. It's not an answer, and they both know it. "Butler is watching him, and Foaly- he's a good friend of ours, of Arty's- Foaly promised that he'll make sure he's getting proper treatment right now. You might not be able to speak to him, but you'll be able to see him."

Angeline narrows her eyes, and says nothing.

She can hear there is more to be said.

"...There's another, um..." Holly coughs, clears her throat, shudders. Her voice is low and tense in a way that is all but alarming, and not comforting at all. "We're taking Artemis to a clinic, soon. I know what it sounds like, but it's at his own request- he can admit he needs more help than we can give him and this clinic is just where he needs to be, right now. They'll be able to help him, and Butler will be able to stay, to keep him safe, but- I'm sorry, ma'am, I don't know if you will. You..." She hesitates, voice wavering, then goes still, forcibly calm from head to foot. "I think this might be the only time you'll be able to visit him, here. I'm sorry."

Anxious fear cools into solid, unwavering anger. She opens her mouth once, rage collecting around her heart, and then, with the control befitting a Fowl, closes her eyes and breathes deep into silence once again.

She wants to say that the fairies have done quite enough, thank you. She appreciates the offer, but Artemis will recover quite well from the comfort of his own home, in the care of the Fowl family physician, with both his parents there to support him. There will be no underground, alien clinic, there will be no magic, and there will most certainly be no fairies disallowing her from being with her son.

There will be no _fairies_ at all, because _they_ are the ones who have broken him.

Artemis, however, has made it perfectly clear what he needs, time and time again.

He does not need her making this decision for him.

Her eyes burn, grief sticking in her throat, and when the silvery site of the shuttle blurs, it still takes her a few moments to realize that she is crying.

_I want normal back._

_Even if I never had it in the first place._

A school of iridescent fish gathers curiously outside the window. One in particular, glittering blue and gleaming gold, hovers close right by the window, fins whipping back and forth to make little currents in the ocean, swirling around their silent ship before the fish darts away.

Blue and gold, just like her son's eyes.

Because the fairies couldn't leave even _those_ untouched.

The anger about her heart hardens to grief, instead, and for several moments, her throat is too tight with emotion to speak at all.

"This has to stop," she whispers, finally. The words, again, are steady, because an emotional breakdown is not befitting of a Fowl, and more than that, her turning weepy and broken now will fix nothing. She'd broken down once before, and that had nearly broken her son. She will not do it now- not when he needs her.

The truth of it is, though, she almost wants to cry.

"Ma'am," Holly begins, testy and almost coldly polite. "Artemis-"

"I'm sorry- I know it's not your fault. I know that Artemis has involved himself in all of this of his own free will, and that when he inserted himself into your matters, he certainly did not ask for permission. ...Permission _or_ forgiveness." They both laugh weakly, Holly with her head still turned away while Angeline can't help but smile, even though it hurts like a childhood injury.

Artemis doesn't ask permission, and he doesn't ask forgiveness.

He acts, and then, deals with the consequences.

Now, these consequences have hurt him instead of someone else.

"And-" she forges on, voice wavering, "a-and- perhaps I ought to simply be the proudest mother in the world, right? Shouldn't I? My son is brilliant and has _saved_ the world so many times I don't even know about them all. He's saved Timmy; he's saved _me-_ but-"

Her throat tightens again, all but suffocating the desperate words into nothing. They crack and break around her heart, like her chest is being pierced with serrated shards of glass.

"B-but-"

The shuttle around her blurs again. Suddenly, all she can see is Artemis, standing before her with a fragile smile, blue and gold eyed and a new person altogether, and explaining, _Mother, this is Holly Short._

"Bloody hellfire, Captain, he's a _child!"_

This time, it is Holly's turn to bow her head, and say nothing.

Guilt and grief tightens her shoulders even from behind, and that right there, is quite nearly enough to break her.

Artemis Fowl the Second is many, many things, to many, many people. But to Angeline, he is not a genius. He is not a criminal mastermind of his younger years, or the conniving humanitarian he's trying to remake himself as now. He is not the heir to a criminal empire or family fortune. He is not one of the most powerful men in all of Ireland and quite possibly the world over.

He is, first and foremost, her son.

Her son that looks uncomfortable when he calls her _Mum,_ and is, right now, a fifteen year old boy about to be shipped off to an asylum.

_Artemis fixed me. He fixed his father._

_And I can't fix him._

There is silence between them again. Holly doesn't- or, perhaps, just can't- face her; the little elf is now very still and very quiet in her seat, steering the shuttle through the water in a quiet that is insurmountable. There are no words to be said, and the minutes instead tick by with a choking, agonizing slowness, and Angeline waits until she can see her son.

Except, even when Holly docks the shuttle, bringing them to a halt without a word, and the harness around her hisses in her ears and lifts and the water at the window has become the cool interior of a fairy-made structure and the engine has cut to nothing-

Even now, Angeline still can not move.

The world around her shakes and constricts, a dizzy narrowing she can't see and can hardly think. It's a maddening chaos that feels sick, her heart racing and her head pounding, and it's stricken her just so _frightened_ she can't move a single inch.

This can't be happening again.

Her family can't be falling apart _again!_

It's been too long, in this impossible, maddening silence, when Holly finally shifts her chair around, and lifts her helmet off to look her right in the eye.

Her gaze is her son's gaze, and that, just barely, is enough to ground her.

"Arty is-" Holly's voice wavers, too, and she stops for a beat, a pallor crossing across her face as if she doesn't know quite how to put this. "We've put too much responsibility on Artemis. He's been infuriatingly _successful_ with that responsibility, yeah... he handles it all so well that I think we've forgotten that he's vulnerable, too, along the way." She drags a hand through her short hair, then balances her elbows on her knees, gaze turning distant and face fading into honest regret.

"Artemis sees himself as extremely effective, I think," she goes on. "He knows what he's capable of and he knows he's good at it. He's certainly not insecure... Frond, no." There's a short-lived smile between the both of them, despite every crack of grief splintered down through Angeline's soul, but it's a smile that swiftly dies, and is smothered by quiet misery once again. "...But he doesn't think he's a good person."

Angeline does not cry.

But perhaps it is a near thing.

"And... and, you're right," Holly struggles on after a heartbeat, her face falling even if her voice holds steady. "We, the fairies, share at least some of the blame for that. I'm his friend, and if I'd paid more attention, if I hadn't let him deflect for so long, I could've seen this coming. I could've talked to him... at least helped him get treatment before he got this bad. I knew he felt guilty for hurting me, but..." Her lower lip trembles and she sinks down, head bowed for the eyes that mirror her son's to waver, the eye that _is her son's,_ and for just a moment, suddenly Holly is about to break and Angeline is the one to witness it. "He's forgiven for it. I'm not sure how much he ever told you, but he's hurt me, more than once, and I've been furious by it but I've never not understood why, and I've forgiven for him for it, Mrs. Fowl. We've been through too much together and I _care_ about him too much to not. I always thought he knew... he's my _friend,_ so I thought- I never knew, this whole time, that he felt so... so _guilty..."_

And then, for the first time in this entire ride, Angeline sees something that makes her feel better:

Holly is hurting, too.

Her son is not the only one suffering, and she is not the only one affected by it.

Neither of them are alone.

Angeline takes another deep breath. She smooths down the wrinkles in her blouse at last, then straightens her bun while Holly continues to shuddering faintly across from her, her eyes downcast and darting with the haze of whatever terrible things she's seen on this last misadventure- whatever things Artemis has said and done that she's now considering to be her fault.

Maybe they are.

But all Angeline knows now is that Artemis needs help.

That means he's going to need Holly, too.

Angeline stands. She has to duck her head, to not hit it on the low ceiling, and the crouch is stiff and undignified, but she has been much worse. She's fallen apart before. She won't fall apart now.

"If you think Artemis doesn't know you forgive him," she says to the shuddering elf, "then I think you'd best go tell him that, Holly."

There's quiet for several moments again.

But when the captain finally brings herself to look up at her again, one eye warm as summer and fantastical as spring, the other human through and through from its heroism down to its fragility, there's the strength there that Angeline knows Artemis is going to need.

Without words, Angeline leads the little elf from the shuttle, and upon setting foot at last into the hospital ship, turns to search for her son.

However, no search is necessary.

Artemis sits in the entrance terminal, deep in conversation with Butler, who is actually who she found first because against all the magic and technology and an unbelievable other world, he stands out like a sore thumb. They wait together at a table, settled against the back wall, and beside them is a _centaur_ , which is, quite frankly, ludicrous enough, but Angeline is not here to stare at the oddities of the fairy's world.

Artemis is pale but whole, worn yet healthy if only on the outside. And it's horrible, but now he actually is _casual,_ his suit exchanged for an overlarge trench coat that's loose at the shoulders and drags at the heels and hugs over the rest of him like a blanket. And, god, he's tired, too- not the tired she's seen in him when Butler sometimes shepherds him from his study to his room, at the break of dawn, not even a tired that matches with that first chilling message on the phone, telling her that he was unwell and recovering and sedated.

He looks tired like it's an exhaustion that is bone-deep, and has eaten through him so thoroughly no amount of sleep will heal it.

Then, he looks up.

Clarity sings through his hooded eyes as sunlight through a clouded day, clear-minded and awake where Holly had been confident and strong. He stands, with Butler immediately watchful at his side and a hand on his arm, but Artemis has eyes only for them.

"Holly," he says, light in her eye and warmth in his own. "Mother."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, Foaly, a few months after this! Thanks for reading!


	3. Foaly: Lonely

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kudos/comments! 
> 
> More TAC, this time with Foaly ;u; I adore Foaly so much. Sassy boy. Enjoy <3

Foaly never thought he would say it.

And he _certainly_ never thought he'd be _unhappy_ to say it.

But Police Plaza is _boring_ without the Mud Boy.

It's a good thing, of course. In theory. If the police are bored, that means the city's not in flames, that Opal Koboi's not about wreaking havoc, that the world's not about to be at stake in some hare-brained time-traveling absolutely manic scheme. In a perfect world, the police _should_ be bored! It's a _good_ thing!

Foaly clicks his fingers along the holo-keyboard, dully watching the screens flicker around him, and sighs.

Just because it's a good thing doesn't mean it's not _boring._

The world goes on around them, anyway; it always does. Police Plaza is not Plaza-of-all-Things-Mud-Boy, it's host of all things Lower Elements Police, and his job has existed before Artemis Fowl and will continue to exist long after he's gone. There are seven current operations scrolling on the screens around him right this moment, other missions to supervise, other cases. Holly is mostly otherwise occupied, these days, doing paperwork behind a desk in exchange for having the freedom and the time to check up on their resident psychotic friend- ah, he shouldn't think that, though. Artemis finds the word amusing, sometimes, but Holly really does not.

If Foaly really stops to think about it, perhaps it's not that funny to begin with.

He scowls again, frown deepening further as he watches the numbers blur. He aimlessly grapples for a second carrot, then folds his arms, displeased and unhappy.

He hasn't seen Artemis, not since the hospital ship. It's not that he doesn't reluctantly, maybe sort of care about the guy, but he's really not a hospital-visit, sentimental kind of centaur- and Artemis isn't a hospital-patient kind of human. They've exchanged a few emails in these past months, but they're mostly professional correspondences relating to his Ice Cube, since Foaly's the only one with the technical know-how to keep the project going while Artemis is unable to. Holly visits, as much as Dr. Argon and Trouble will let her, and often passes on updates on how the kid is doing. He'll certainly know if Artemis ever takes a turn for much worse- or much better. That's enough.

Maybe.

Hopefully.

Foaly scowls again, swipes the mission control screens away, and dives into his servers instead with a single-minded strive to block out everything else clouding around him.

Two weeks ago, shortly after a magical detox that had been _supposed_ to make things _better,_ Holly had turned up in his lab, high-strung and tense, irritation burning in her eyes that only served to try and muffle the true upset underneath. It had taken some work to even get it out of her, and even now, part of Foaly still wishes he hadn't.

It had made the compulsions and paranoia worse.

So much worse, that the Mud Boy had apparently figured out a way to reconfigure the light in his room into an electrical battery, live wires and all, and then, shocked himself with it.

Bye, compulsions. Hi, Orion.

And no, actually, _nobody_ wants to build a D'Arviting bivouac with you.

He's not sure if Holly's been back, since then. Foaly knows he certainly isn't about to make his first visit now.

And no, Foaly does _not_ care that the boy genius had manipulated a way to hurt himself in a room that he himself had declared psychotic-mastermind-proof, thank you very much.

"D'Arviting Mud Boy," he mutters to himself, finally crunching a solid bite out of his carrot. His servers are looking to be digitally spotless, so he just worms in deeper instead, in urgent need of the distraction. "I know I've asked you so many times to take a vacation from meddling in the world over, but... gods, was this not what I meant."

His aimless search takes him to one of his carefully hidden ArtemisCam files, this one squirreled away in a folder of his old university projects, and a vague smile twitches into place, just before he wipes it away with another bite. There's no one worth supervising in Fowl Manor at the moment, and even then, most of these files now lead to dead cameras, anyway. It's an ongoing game he has with Artemis- not that he could ever admit that he enjoys it aloud. Make cameras tinier and tinier, hidden better and better, secreted away as securely as he can manage it into that mansion of his... and just dare Artemis to find them all.

Because somehow, miraculously, probably stupendously stupidly, he's come to trust the Mud Boy, and the fun of the challenge has become more important than the surveillance.

Had been fun, anyway.

Not even a few months previously, Artemis had torn through the whole manor on a warpath, scrubbing through as deeply as he could to worm out every last scrap of alien tech in existence. At first it had been amusing, but had quickly stopped being so when he hadn't even gotten a single mocking, victorious email afterwards. Foaly mourns still for the lost tech... he's pretty sure only three cameras survived, each one weak, struggling bugs that fluttered about trees on the very borders of the manor.

He knows why it happened now, of course.

Doesn't make it any easier, but at least he knows why.

Foaly grits his teeth and, with another hard swallow, sends the ArtemisCam file down to the bottom of the list, and continues his aimless scrolling.

Except... _hmm._

There's a file, there, that doesn't look right. Just an assignment from his school days, nothing important about it unless he's got a serious memory problem here, but right there, plain as day-

_Last edited 13 hours ago_

Well, that's just not right.

Foaly narrows his eyes again. For a heartbeat, he almost wishes for his tinfoil hat- but Caballine'll kill him, and anywho, perhaps it really is just nothing...

Crunching a third bite off the carrot, he clicks into the file.

At first, it really does seem to be nothing. It's an utterly ancient pet project of his, a game of six-dimensional chess that he'd designed from the ground up for his second year project in computer science, and promptly forgotten about afterwards. He'd made the game up, and as tragic as it is, there really aren't that many takers for an _ordinary_ game of chess- never mind one triple the dimensions.

Nobody around here appreciates a good game of intellectual skill. He's surrounded by _morons._

Except this file was opened just yesterday, and right there, hovering on the holo-screen before him- someone has already made the first move.

An inkling of suspicion worms its way into his brain.

Slowly, his eyes still narrowed, Foaly pushes the game to the side. He pulls up the ancient code from the same file, and, apprehensive and unsure, runs a search for any mention of a certain Mud Boy's name.

 

public void entertainMe(boolean artemis_is_bored, boolean artemis_outsmarts_argon, boolean donkeycheats, boolean orion)  
{  
if(artemis_is_bored && artemis_outsmarts_argon)  
sixDimensionalChess.beatDonkeyEgo();

else if (donkey_cheats || orion)  
sixDimensionalChess.endDonkeysEgo();

else  
sixDimensionalChess.iAmBored();  
}

//your move, Foaly

 

For several long moments, Foaly can do nothing but stare.

He doesn't know how a mental patient, currently under especially close watch after shocking himself in what definitely constitutes self-harm, got a hold of a computer. Or internet access. Or the free time to hack deep all the way into his system, and find this file. He certainly doesn't know why Artemis expects him to _entertain him,_ and he knows the surely responsible thing to do would be to email Argon to please keep a closer eye on his celebrity patient, because this surely has too much room to end badly for someone who's mentally unstable and very unwell.

He does know, however, that a thrill of familiar excitement is beating in his veins for the very first time since Artemis had started speaking in fives.

"All right, Mud Boy," Foaly says, and with a roguish grin, the burgeoning chess match is brought back to the forefront. "I'll entertain you, all right... and when I win, you'll finally have to admit that I'm _not_ a D'Arviting _donkey."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (All credit goes to Shadowlit in the comments, for writing that little blurb of code! Because I'm utterly helpless at comp sci, and my first attempt reflected that, so they very kindly took it upon themselves to write a functional version. THANK YOU!)
> 
> Next up: TLG's timeskip with Artemis I. See you tomorrow!


	4. Artemis I: Grieving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kudos/comments!
> 
> Finally, an Artemis- just not the right one ;u; During the TLG timeskip. Enjoy <3

The world heals.

The Fowl family does not heal with it.

Perhaps it is befitting that Artemis, as its patriarch, heals the least of all.

He sits, even now, back up on the hill, under the tree that guards his son's grave from the rest of the rebuilding world. The sun is close to setting, orange and gold beaming across a pink sky, and something about it feels just so painfully melodramatic and maudlin, he'd laugh if he wasn't sitting at his son's grave.

Artemis doesn't laugh.

It feels like he hasn't laughed in a long time.

Angeline is surely still in the manor, with Myles and Beckett. She is miserable, these days, and she is part of the reason why Artemis needs so badly to get away. He is trying, very hard, to be a better person- to be the person his son had been, and that his son would be proud of. He is trying even now, spreading his money and what influence he has all across Ireland to help piece it back together as nothing more than a humanitarian. He is trying, so very hard, but-

But it's hard to be in that lonely house, with his even lonelier wife.

He has to, of course. His oldest may be dead, but he has two sons after that still need parents; quite frankly, he's a little afraid every time he leaves them only with Angeline. He's been told about his wife's breakdown, in a lifetime ago when the Russians had taken him and slaughtered the Major. If she has another, this time with Myles and Beckett, this time without servants to look after the boys, this time without Butler because Butler won't step foot into the house-

He does not like to think about it.

But the twins are a wholly different kind of ordeal, and they are not one that he can ignore or even postpone, because they are four year old children and he has already not been there for one son; he will _not_ fail to be there for them. But, Christ Almighty, it is _hard._

Beckett will not _get it,_ no matter how hard they try; even Angeline tries, even Angeline _knows,_ but the boy will just not _listen!_ He keeps asking when his big brother is coming home, and when they try to gently explain that he's not, the boy gets upset. The boy insists that he can still _hear_ Artemis, in the halls, on the grounds, over the orange roses that have bloomed and splashed across the alter where he died. Which is positively insanity, but the boy is little more than a toddler and there are no words to explain to him that Artemis is **not coming back.**

And then there is Myles; Myles, who is just- he is _Artemis_ , to every last detail; there is no denial to handle with him because in those dark, knowing eyes, he'd understood the moment he'd been told that Artemis was gone. There is no upset wailing for his big brother in the middle of the night, and there is no sobbing insistence that he can still hear Artemis' voice echoing in the big halls of the house.

It's as if the universe had seen how badly they had failed with their first son and then given them another to try again with.

But they can't just try again.

Not when their first attempt is buried right here on this hill.

A slow, burning sorrow gathers in Artemis' throat, and he bows his head in the sting of the setting sun. He picks at the grass growing beneath his feet, loose and waving, then just thrusts his hands into the cool dirt and sighs.

He doesn't even bloody well know how Myles and Beckett remember him in the first place. Beckett, especially. The twins are barely four years old, now, and their older brother has been abroad for the past six months, and even before that he'd been shut up in his study so much the twins had barely seen him for weeks at a time.

Lord knows it would've been easier, if they just didn't remember that they'd once had an older brother.

Butler, of course, will not be there at the house.

He hasn't come to see them since before the funeral.

Artemis squeezes his eyes shut tighter, a ragged gasp dragging in through his tight throat. For several moments, it is too overwhelming to even breathe.

There was a time before, when Butler had done this. He's not sure- it feels like he'd forgotten it once, which is just silly, because it was only a year ago that his son had returned from the dead, changed in ways that he shouldn't have been, unchanged in ways that he should've been, with a triumphant and beaming Butler by his side. It was only a year ago, but now Artemis remembers it through a murky haze, that his son had been dead for three years, yet for Butler to seclude himself and wait in solitude for his charge to return. There had been impossible stories, insane stories, of magic and time travel and- and _fairies-_

Then, his son had come back.

This time, Artemis knows that he's not coming back.

Back then, there had been no grave.

There had been no body.

Now...

He smiles distantly again, an old wetness on his cheeks, and wishes for a cigar.

Well, he'd seen Artemis' dead body, this time. Right there underneath the hill of roses.

He knows he's not coming back.

Several moments pass by in silence once again. The sun continues to dip lower and lower beneath the horizon, shadows stretching until he can not even see the roses from here.

Unbidden, and by force of habit alone, his hand goes to his pocket, where it grapples for one very precious picture.

That's another similarity, about all of this. A similarity that feels murky and hazy, like he's remembering something long forgotten., but he _remembers,_ now-

Butler tells the same stories about fairies that he did before.

Except this time, Angeline has joined him.

They both prattle on about this madness, and something about it just makes him irrationally _angry._ They both beg him to remember; didn't Artemis have two blue eyes, not just the one? Didn't Artemis do something to him, when he reappeared, wasn't there magic, wasn't there-

He shakes his head again, fingers digging briefly into his hair. It feels like the thoughts are sand, slipping through his fingers to spill down an infinite hourglass. He can't hold onto them; he can't grasp a single one.

All he has, instead, is this picture.

It is an odd thing, and one that he has never been quite sure how to translate. The picture is of his son- not eighteen, because he has never looked (never _been)_ eighteen, but Artemis remembers him being born eighteen years ago. And he is asleep, curiously enough, pillowed sloppily down onto a couch he vaguely recognizes from the sitting room, head lolling and body limp as a wet noodle. His son, surrounded by... well, he's meant to call them friends.

Artemis is still not sure who in the bloody world they are.

There's a centaur. Yes, a _centaur,_ standing with auburn hair and eyes and half the body of a horse off to one side, smirking down at his son with such a sense of amusement it carries even through the picture. And on his other side are the Butler siblings, Juliet's face bright and sing-song with a teasing immortalized in the picture while the manservant was as impeccably calm as ever, a bracing hand held down to support Artemis yet with a mirth in his eyes that made him perhaps lighter than he has ever seen him.

And there, sitting next to his son, is another.

She is a woman- a girl? Shorter than Artemis, shorter than everyone in the picture, but she has the face and body of an adult. Pointed ears under an auburn crew cut, ears that scream some sort of cosmetic surgery except the _centaur_ has them too, and there is certainly no plastic surgeon in the world over for _that._ She is dressed in a sticky-shiny blue bodysuit, something akin to a motorcycle helmet in her lap, while Artemis is- he sniffs. Unknotted tie, shreds of a sleeve clinging to a shoulder, a head that hasn't seen a comb... the pair looks utterly ridiculous, his son akin to a common vagrant, but the woman, the little girl who he's been told is Holly, fully embraces it. She sits there beaming to the camera, Artemis propped between her shoulder and Butler's strong hand, two fingers stuck up behind his son's lolling head.

The scene is nonsense.

What Angeline tells him it is is more nonsense than that.

Holly. A... fairy, Angeline tells him. A fairy who is- was- their son's friend.

_Fairies._

The same insanity he remembers Butler telling them years ago; insanity that he is somehow quite sure he's not meant to remember, and yet, he does. Holly and that centaur, Foaly; and there are others, countless others, a whole race of others underneath the very ground on which he sits. It's not just Angeline, either. Juliet confirmed it the very moment he asked, and even looked down at the picture with an exceeding and sad fondness as she recounts the story of a wayward **troll,** and a megalomaniac **gnome,** and tells him that Artemis had taken such a blow to the head he'd been dazed for days even with **magic,** and that was how the picture had been taken. That Artemis had been dazed out of his mind, and that had been the only way to get him to sit still for a picture.

A family photo, she'd called it.

He doesn't ask Butler.

He can't stand being in the oppressive grief of the dojo, but it hardly matters, anyway. It's the same story that Butler told them four years ago.

He knows what Butler will say.

If it's a photoshop, it's an exceedingly cruel one, and there is no longer any way Artemis has to verify the authenticity of it, regardless. So he is only able to assume that it is real.

Either his family has gone stark raving mad, and he is the only sane one left- or, he has never, ever truly known his son. His son, in that picture, has lived a lie that he has never been so much as a part of, and has found new friends, new family, that he has never felt the need or desire to so much as include them in.

Some days, he is so intensely _lonely_ that he swears it must be the first.

Other days, it is all so overwhelming that it just might be both.

Today... today, come back home for the first time in weeks and yet, he so _badly_ is frightened of the reality that waits for him behind its walls, he is sitting out here alone at Artemis' grave...

Today is one of the days where it doesn't matter.

Because stark, raving mad or not, fairies or not, this _Holly_ or not- his son is still dead.

So the world will continue to heal around his family, and while it does, Artemis knows he's going to be sitting up on this hill and watching it pass for a long, long time.

His back still resting against the roughness of the tree, his head and wet face cradled miserably in his hand, Artemis does not see the strange procession of a tiny fairy, a giant manservant, and a proud centaur, bringing a healing and newborn human back into the protection of his home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Artist: iesnoth on tumblr  
> One more chapter, right after this one, finally with Artemis (the right one!) and Holly! The whole fam, really, but Holly's POV. Hope to see you tomorrow!


	5. Holly: Breathing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo, final chapter! Thanks for reading along the way, hope you enjoy!
> 
> I also might have one more thing in the works for this fandom, but it'll take a bit more than this and be a little complicated. We'll see. For now, I give my offering of clone!Artemis and shall exit, stage left :)

Holly is so ecstatic, she can not stop smiling.

It is, in fact, her first truly genuine, unburdened smile in six months straight.

"Wait, my dear, I believe- Emerald, is it? Ruby?" Artemis' pale brow furrows, and he shakes his head, those eyes that are still such a startling blue flickering closed with the pain of frustration. "No..."

The _my dear_ throws her a tad, but she's heard much more dumbfounding things out of that mouth, and right now, when his brain is probably still scrambled and his thoughts jumbled, she is just so happy that he's speaking _at all_ she can't bring herself to mind. The first thing she'd done when they'd gotten him sitting down was hug the stuffing out of him- he still looks a bit disheveled from it- and now, she really wants to do it again. "Opal," she corrects gently, settling for trying to subtly to support him just a little more instead. "It's okay, Arty. It'll come back."

The boy genius' scowl deepens again, but there's no time for his irritation to spread any further than that. No else in the room is entertaining it today; even Foaly has his own faint smile as he withdraws from the living clone's pale left arm, passing a cotton ball to Butler for him to press down on where he's just drawn blood from. "If you'd asked me yesterday about that, I wouldn't have had a comment. There's-"

"I don't think anyone asked you at all, Foaly..."

"... _There's no data..."_ he continues, grimacing a little, but there's no real annoyance there at all. He, like her, like Butler, is just too buoyant to care. "...on the tenacity of memories in a pure soul. Really, there's no data on any of this at all. This is all new ground being broken today- a new field of study entirely, thanks to this one here. And my tech." He kneels down to Artemis' face suddenly, the hands that nudge at his cheeks and neck clinical at first, but then there is a sudden softness in his eyes and he is abruptly overwhelmed. "You risk-taking, imbecilic, maddening Mud Boy... today, I think I can have a little faith in Artemis Fowl."

Artemis continues to look bewildered and nothing but. His brow furrows still, and he lets Foaly prod at his face with a docile (dazed?) patience that they have never seen from him before.

Holly, meanwhile, agrees with Foaly.

Today, when he has done the impossible, and _come back_ to them-

Today, she thinks they can all have a little faith in Artemis Fowl.

The human's expression creases faintly again after a few moments, confusion wearing lines into a newborn's face. "Artemis Fowl," he repeats back, monotonous and slow, like an unsure parrot. "That... is me. ...Artemis Fowl the Second."

 _He's back. He's really, really back._ "Yes," Holly reassures when his eyes search her for confirmation, and her heart all but sings with the joy of it. "That's your name." While Foaly futzes with listening to his breath and his heart, searching his eyes, Holly withdraws just enough to better tuck the blanket closer about his shoulders. He is so cold, and so pale. He is alive, but weak. Recovering, but slow.

_He is alive._

Artemis considers them all again, eyes narrowing in the new silence. He looks so worn and tired that Holly thinks the story of Ho Chi Minh that has become the story of the B'wa Kell Rebellion is done, for now; but even still she can see the gears turning, behind those wholly blue, human eyes. "My apologies," he mutters at last, a trembling, uncoordinated hand brushing limply through hair that is black like ash. "There's something there, but I can't quite- it's-..."

"It's there, boy. It's somewhere, in that brand new brain, courtesy of yours truly. You're just going to have to be patient, for the first time in your life. Er." Foaly fidgets, sniffing. "New life."

There's another briefest flicker of a scowl, and Artemis' eyes narrow. He watches Foaly for a beat, then turns back to Holly. "I don't believe this one is my friend, is he?"

Foaly splutters, high-pitched and stunned, and for a moment, Holly wants nothing more than to hug the foolish Mud Boy in the tightest hug he's ever experienced.

(Again.)

"Well," Foaly huffs, but affronted or no, that smile is still right there on his face. "I see _some_ things never change..."

Artemis continues to look suspicious, though it's a near thing, his head dipping down on his frail chest and eyes still fluttering. His skin is snow-white and butterfly-thin, the bones delicate and his heart too fast, but that is okay. She's here, Foaly's here, Butler's here.

Between the three of their expertises, Artemis Fowl is quite possibly the safest boy in the world right now.

"Artemis Fowl the Second," he repeats, brow furrowing again. "The _second..._ I don't think I'm a fan of that."

Holly rolls her eyes, but it's Butler who responds to that one, the one hand settled on his other shoulder moving to his head as Foaly withdraws, and he kneels down for them to be eye to eye. "You're first in far too many things already. Please, content yourself with being second for your namesake. Your father... oh, your _parents,_ Artemis... they're going to be so _happy!"_

By the look on the Big Man's face, Holly's pretty sure they're not the only ones.

"...parents..." Artemis tilts his head silently, jaw gritting tight. "I have parents..."

Holly elbows him in the ribs, remembering only at the last second to maybe be a little gentle. "Did you think you just sprang up out of the ground?"

Foaly, from where he's now fidgeting with vials of Artemis' blood, sniffs again. "Well, technically, _this one_ maybe did..."

That comment deserves little more than another eye roll, but it is again Butler, who has never had the greatest patience for fairy bickering, who steps straight over it to move closer to his charge again. She doesn't think he's ever seen him smile so broad; then again, Butler has certainly never seen his charge come back to life.

"You have parents, Artemis," Butler assures. "You also have a good group of friends that cares about you very, very much, and will be very upset if you **ever** even **think** about pulling something like this again; do you understand me?"

Light dances through Artemis' inscrutable eyes, and there's a fidgeting under the thick blanket. A tapping in his hand, and Holly resist the urge to take it through the wool. "Quite honestly, old friend?" Artemis murmurs, licking his lips. "No, I don't. I would quite like to, but I still don't actually know what it is I've _pulled,_ as you say. However, I am grateful for the sentiment, and... hmm. Old friend." He tilts his head again, a new understanding coloring the coldness of his face. "Most interesting."

Butler looks so happy he could sing.

He doesn't, of course; still, Holly knows Artemis is lucky he only survives with a rough hand in his hair, an almost overwhelming moment of near paternal affection, and an odd choking sort of cough that is quite nearly a sob.

Artemis' eyes flicker stubbornly again. She can tell it's hard for him to stay awake, now, as if he's just survived a particularly rigorous healing and his body is still trying to reboot. The analogy is unsettlingly apt, but now, at least, she is sure that he'll be okay, even as his head nods and jerks once again, eyes half-open and consciousness flickering by in little bursts.

While he may not be quite back yet, Holly is sure that Artemis is still the most stubborn Mud Boy there is, so she keeps her mouth shut. If she promises him it's okay for him to go to sleep, he'll only fight it that much harder.

Some naive, injured part of her desperately wants to promise it anyway. That nothing will ever be _not_ okay ever again.

This is Artemis Fowl, of course. When he has his full faculties back about him- and he _will-_ that matter will be placed quite firmly out of Holly's control. Artemis will find danger, and he will bury himself in it from the neck up, and everyone in this room will be involved, whether they like it or not.

But, for now...

"Artemis?" she murmurs, as the boy's head lolls again.

His eyes continue to flicker open and shut, head still nodding like a baby's. He makes a soft grunt of frustration, fingers still tapping under the blanket, then falls reluctantly still. "Yes, Captain Holly...?"

Captain Holly. Another new one. Like Artemis has been shaken up like a snowglobe and now he's not quite settled yet, balanced two degrees off center axis and still rotating. Smiling faintly, Holly moves around just a bit to balance her friend even more securely, both against her and against Butler's hand, and moves forward just enough to meet his flickering eyes.

"Welcome back," she whispers, and kisses his cheek.

His eyes flicker dazedly several times on.

"Y-yes, Captain Holly," he croaks back, and then, falls silent and still. His eyes slip shut, and his heart beats on gently under her hands.

For a moment.

"Of current consequence," he says suddenly, crisp and clear, "I believe I am in possession of an extra digit on my left foot. As a genetic clone, this is understandable, and perhaps of no importance, but I would recommend the sequencing of my genome to confirm I lack any other serious mutational defects. ...My friends."

Several seconds again drag on in a shocked, dead silence.

Then, Artemis slumps sideways down to Holly's shoulder, head sagging and eyes shut, and Holly is not the only one in the room to smile.

"No one told him he was a clone, did they?" Butler asks, folding his arms to carefully fit himself down onto the couch at his charge's other side. He, like Holly, seems unable to help himself from bringing a hand around to rest at Artemis' neck, feeling his pulse.

Foaly shakes his head, both amused and exasperated all at once. "No one told him Holly was a captain, either."

_Oh, Arty._

There is little to be said, now. None of them want to risk waking Artemis, Butler and Holly both moving with the most extreme of caution to keep the boy cushioned between them: protected, guarded, safe. Alive. There is so much that they have to talk about- Artemis' health, the missing memories, how to re-introduce a dead boy to his devastated parents, how to re-introduce a dead _Public Enemy and Martyr Number One_ to the People- Frond, nothing about this is fixed, and everything about it still desperately needs handling.

Yet, right now, it seems that none of them have the mind for it.

Foaly paces about, as quiet as a centaur can be, testing on those vials of Artemis' blood while muttering about obstinate, arrogant, amazing Mud Boys who like to give him a heart attack. Butler sits silently on Artemis' other side, the pain and grief of six months of denial made whole merely in the first breath of the pale clone resting quietly under his hand.

And Holly is left on Artemis' right, feeling his heart beat, and for the first time in six months, she can smile, too.

It's not the only first, either.

It's been nearly four years, since Artemis Fowl had connived his way into her life. Seven years, for Butler and Foaly, but just the four for her and him. There's been lulls of peace in between bursts of chaos before, months of calm that had ended in bloody violence and death, but this-

This feels different.

Artemis has died in their arms, and then, taken his first breath in them anew. He is different, they are different; the _world_ is a fundamentally different place, now, and it is different because of Artemis Fowl. _Her_ world is different, because of him.

She knows, even sitting here now, that it is not _the end._ The end of an era, perhaps, but Artemis is not done taking the world by storm, and they're not done being hauled along for the ride.

But today, here and now, Artemis is alive, and today, from now on and forever, they all have each other as friends.

 _Perhaps,_ she thinks, smiling fondly at the gentle breaths of the thief, mastermind, criminal, hero, alive, friend, _that's enough._

 


End file.
